Tuesday, May 30, 2006

On NPR the other day, I heard one of the founders of the movement towards Christian fundamentalist Home Schooling refer to Tolerance as a FAD. I guess that's just until the Christians take over and it becomes acceptable to persecute and segregate anyone who doesn't accept their narrow version of Christ. These people are so afraid of anything that disagrees with them that they have even brought out a movement and book called "Praise Moves - The Christian ALTERNATIVE to Yoga" the emphasis on alternative is theirs, not mine. http://www.praisemoves.com/ChristianAlternative.htmWhy does there need to be a Christian alternative to yoga? Because yoga was started by Hindu people, and everyone knows that tolerance of anything that doesn't agree one hundred percent with fundamentalist Christianity is by default SATANISM! (my emphasis) So you just rename all of the poses with Christian references.

But co-opting yoga from Hinduism just isn't enough! Check out this article. It claims that there can be NO SUCH THING as Christian yoga. All contact with Hinduism has made it tainted. http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2005/002/14.40.htmlIt sounds like this person was pretty groundless and screwed up, and then one day the roulette wheel in her head stopped on Christianity, and she was "saved" but she didn't want to leave behind yoga when she freed herself from Satan, so she found her way to the Christian "alternative" to yoga, but then realized that the two beliefs were totally incompatible. Because if you're not 100 percent for the Christian god, you're 100 percent against the Christian god.

Please, people, the narrower your mind is, the more closed it is. If you want to be a Christian, even a Fundamentalist Christian, more power to you, so long as you don't demand that the entire world change to fit your worldview. That way lies witch hunts and holocausts. It happens every time. Just look at "Rev." Phelps. He started out saying God hates non-Christians, then God hates Gays, and today, he has extended his God's hate to "God Hates America". If you have a very strong stomach, check it out. http://www.godhatesamerica.com/ He now pickets the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, saying that his god is killing our soldiers because our government tolerates homosexuals. Sure, he's a psychopath, but many fundamentalists are just a small step from being like him.

Please, let other people be the way they want to be. If your vision of god is really as loving as you say, he will not hold you to account for not forcing him on everybody you know. But I'm ranting. I shouldn't try to force tolerance on others, either, now should I? What a trap. You can't win for losing.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

My wife bought me a copy of the NASA book “Apollo Expeditions to the Moon” at a garage sale, for all of a quarter. Isn’t she great? I remember this book from grade school, and it is in perfect condition. But the interesting thing is the folded piece of paper that I found in the index. Somebody made a drawing of the Von Braun Ferry Rocket from the Disneyland TV show, and turned it in at school with the following, completely (sic) text:“This is a picher of a rocut shipe i saw on Disune lande. pasungers code go on this rocut shipe.” How precious is that? The kid did a pretty darn good job of depicting the ship, I think. It also includes the teachers corrections of almost every word, a grade of “B” (wow!) and the text “2nd Grade April 1955” Talk about hidden treasure! I will cherish it forever.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

What's your favorite element? I don't mean fire, water, earth or air, either. (although fire is totally better than the others), I mean periodic table of the elements element. I like europium. Why? None of your business. I just do. Plus, check this out:http://www.unitednuclear.com/glow.htmI gotta get me some of that.

I try not to let things get to me. Nonetheless, they do. I have quite a number of twitches and pet peeves, the foremost of which is anger at the misuse of quotation marks. A pizza place I go to proudly proclaims in its window: "Fresh Dough Made Daily". Now, I'm not just quoting what it says in the window, I'm repeating it verbatim, that is, including the quotation marks that they have painted on the window along with their promise of fresh dough. Some people just throw quotation marks around with little or no regard for what they mean. Maybe they just think they are pretty. Or maybe I'm wrong, and they are actually quoting Oscar Wilde, from his little known play, The Pizzeria, where one character actually says "Fresh Dough Made Daily". Another example is in a hardware store, where there is a tub of utility knives with the verbatim legend: "Caution" - Sharp. First of all, they are knives, of course they are sharp, second of all, what's with the quotation marks. I can find no valid argument for this, like the occasional hand painted "EXIT" signs I have seen. I know I should be more tolerant, but it's just not my nature. Sneak Preview: Another one of my pet peeves involves Snow White. Puzzle that one out, until next time, "Adios".

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

I was just reading an article on Barry Bonds, about how his records will be accompanied in the books by an asterisk, indicating they were achieved with the aid of steroids. But this article went on to point out that we are all implicit in his fraud, because it was blatantly obvious that he was cheating, and we all went along with it. I see the point.Likewise, "president" Bush, was selected, not elected by the five votes of the supreme court, and we all went along with it. Then, he was reelected by the September 11th hijackers, and we all went along with it. Now, we're stuck with eight years of the worst, most corrupt, controlled by extremist elements administration EVER, and we're going along with it. Sure, we pick our battles and fight as hard as we can, but the main point of the NeoCon agenda is to stack the deck against any dissent, equating it with treason, and setting up a Fascistic Theocracy, right under our noses. This Imperial presidency even has the gall to say they stand for the rule of law, while simultaneously adding "signing statements" to many laws. This is a perfectly legal way for any president to add his opinions to the text of any law he signs, but Bush has used these seven hundred and fifty times, almost twice as much as all previous presidents combined, to basically say, this is law, except where I say it isn't. And we're all being dragged along.Perhaps in a hundred years, our descendants will look back and say, sure Barry Bonds broke that record, but it doesn't matter, because he cheated, and maybe they will look back at Bush like most sane people look at Senator Joseph McCarthy. He was a product of his times, and people got dragged along, and down by him, but then we woke up and said that we are better than that, and maybe they can forgive us.

Care to see how the president's signing statements work? Check this out. Truly chilling.

Friday, May 05, 2006

I hate the rich. Everybody knows it. Not just for jealousy's sake, but from knowing that if I were rich, I would do a much better job of it than they do. It's not so much their having that much material wealth, and so little actual worth as human beings, so much as their attitude that they are entitled not only to have what they have, but that no one can take it away from them, which is of course, true, but that still doesn't make it right. I saw part of some tv show about extreme party planning, and the show was apparently about a bunch of rich kids planning their "after prom" party. I think the show just followed them as they planned and executed the party. Well, the few minutes I saw basically featured them whining to their parents that all they had was fifty thousand dollars to throw the party, and that just wasn't going to be enough. I think it was around ten couples throwing this obscenity. I consider most of the rich disposable people because of their wretchedly excessive disposable income. All of this comes to mind because of the recent retirement of Lee Raymond from Exxon Mobil. It turns out that aside from his 400 million dollar retirement package, the details of his employment have come out to the press. In his last year as chairman, he was paid approximately six thousand dollars an hour. I'll say that again, in numbers $6000.00 an hour. You would think, with a salary that high, he wouldn't even need to have a retirement package at all, let alone 400 Million Dollars. For six thousand dollars an hour, I bet I could sock at least ninety percent of that away for a rainy day. Sure, give me a try. But that's not the way the rich think. Too much is never enough for them. Greed is the sheer motivating force in their lives. Are they better people for it? I think not. The few hyper rich people I have known over the years have been among the most miserable excuses for human beings I can imagine. I actually heard one young man's mother tell him that if he was going to smoke, at least he could smoke a decent brand of cigarettes, like Dunhills, which at the time were selling for around 12 dollars a pack. Step back, people. And, back to the Chairman, what possible value could someone bring to a company that would justify six thousand dollars an hour? Does everything he touch turn to gold, or even silver? That might justify it, but I can't think of anything else that would. Maybe he has a magical sense of where to drill for oil. He just walks around in a trance and points to the ground, and if you dig there, Viola, OIL. Very Jed Clampett. I just can't get over it, that in a country where the minimum wage in no way approaches a living wage, these people can actually justify their wretchedly excessive life style. Ok, so maybe if he had taken, say, five hundred dollars an hour compensation, I think he could have scraped by on that, and the other five thousand five hundred dollars an hour could be put back into the company, or maybe used to raise the standard of living for the people who work in their gas stations. Yes, my dreams border on the delusional, but at least they're fun.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

This episode of Black is the New Black is brought to you by Old Curmudgeon brand OatmealFor starters, the 24 hour news cycle has elevated what it calls news to a status that it does not merit. If a tree falls down in the forest, and there isn't a news team there, it still happened, and we still shouldn't care anyways. Follow this simple chart

War in Iraq - NewsWho got bumped off American Idol - Not NewsEarthquake and Tsunami - NewsWho got killed off on Lost - Not NewsLaw passed so private citezens cannot own ultrasound machines - NewsThe fact that the law was passed due to Tom Cruise - Not NewsAnything involving Tom Cruise - Not NewsDebate about laws governing lobbyists - NewsImmigration rallys - NewsMinutemen building a thousand mile, two strand barbed wire fence to keep out illegals- well, sort of news, but more of a publicity stunt. I give it a 6.Natalee Holoway's dissapearance - Not news, at least not any more, and decidedly NOT entertainment news, where the story is disturbingly placed, usually.

So from now on, whenever you see a news story, anywhere, ask yourself, News, or Not News.And by the way the News or Not News debate, decicedly NOT NEWS.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Two dogs were shot into orbit by the Soviet Union in 1960, aboard Sputnik 5, they were named Belka and Strelka. A bunch of other small animals and plants were also on board, but I don't know their names.Belka translated literally means squirrel, but is more likely Russian slang for "whitey". Strelka is Russian for "streaker" or "little arrow". Strelka later had six puppies with Pushok "Fluffy" m. a male dog who participated in many ground based space experiments. One of these puppies, Pushinka "Fluffy" f. was given to President Kennedy’s children by premier Kruschev.

Got only a half decent nights sleep last night, so I made up for the lost sleep by falling asleep first on the train, and then on the bus, on the way to work. Mind you, on the train, I was standing, holding a book. The trains in Atlanta are very quiet and peaceful, the silence only occasionally broken by a ringing mobile phone. Lots of people sleep, very few talk to eachother. The sound of the rails is quite soothing. The bus is a little different. Noisier, hotter, more jarring in general. Much more difficult to sleep, but I was able to anyway. I woke up several times, thinking I had missed my stop, and that I would be late for work. Finding I had not, I logically fell right back asleep. Jolting awake like that can give you such a kink in the neck. If I think I might fall asleep, I make sure to sit in the back of the bus, with my backpack wedged behind my shoulder, as once when I woke up, several years back, I found that someone had lifted my umbrella. And it was a really nice umbrella. Got wet that day, and learned my lesson. Never fall asleep on the bus. Did anyway. Did get off at my stop. At work now.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

I think all borders should be abolished. They are an artificial construct, anyway, and have become a symbol of xenophobia and racism. But then again, I think we should annex Mexico and Canada, and take all of their labor and oil. (Hey, we're doing it by default already.) My main problem with the immigrants who want to work their way into citezenship, is that as soon as they become citizens, they are eligible for the minimum wage, and therefore have become drastically overqualified for the jobs they previously held. Did you think we were employing illegals out of the goodness of our hearts? Hell no, we're employing illegals because they have to take whatever you pay them, they have no protection from harm, no recourse if abused, and if you get tired of them, or if they get uppidy, you can just make an "anonymous" call to the INS, have em' sent back, and just go get a bunch of fresh meat. It's just capitalism's way of bringing back the days of robber barons and child labor, you know, the time the NeoCons fondly, longingly refer to as "the good old days". I'm convinced that before long, like many of the Arab countries, we will be importing our "guest workers" from Indonesia, and when they become too expensive, we will take the next logical step, and import our guest workers from Neptune.

Monday, May 01, 2006

I just saw some 12 or 13 year old punk kid wearing a Ramones t-shirt. I know I'm approaching old fogeyville, but I have a problem with my culture being co-opted by children. Even worse, maybe he's just wearing it because it looks "cool", and doesn't know the Ramones from the whatever is the flavor of the month today. I'm cold, and wolves are after me.

I have to get up several times a night to let my elderly dogs out. While they are doing their business, I usually snap on the TV, and I'm usually subjected to "Paid Advertisement" programs, usually get rich quick schemes, exercise equipment that looks like torture devices, videos of young women who are certain they will never regret showing their breasts to some guy with a video camera (Grandma, is this you?), or miracle cures. We certainly do live in the golden age of snake oil, don't we. I enjoy the "male enhancement" ones the most, especially the one hosted and starring a bunch of creepy looking porn stars, who spout vague praise of this product or that, without ever saying what it does, and implying that it makes your dick bigger. I know that this type of scam probably goes back to roman times (yes, they had TV), but seriously, people, think about it. Considering the billions of dollars that BigPharm (tm) have put into producing and marketing Viagra (Vigorous Penis) , Levitra (Levitating Penis), and Cialis (the one where the guy can't throw a football through a tire swing until he takes it. Jeez, you don't have to be Freud to figure out that one.), don't you think that if there was anything that could increase the size of your package, that they would be all over it, like white on rice? (My appologies to rice.) There would be some vaguely named pharmaceutical (Increx, why not?) with its name plastered on every blimp, bus stop and Nascar hood as far as the eye could see, not just some late night tv program for graveyard shift workers and guys with old dogs. Someday there probably will be a drug like this, I'm sure they are working on it, but until then, never buy anything advertised by a porn star. I'm just sayin'.